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Comment by MattGaiser | Hacker News Reader

And even then, it is only so premium. As you could have a speedy economy seat on the Concorde or a lie flat bed on a widebody by the time Concorde left service. The speed benefit largely goes away if I can travel while sleeping.

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Halving travel times would be really good, the problem is that supersonic never had the range to make the difference meaningful.

JFK-London in 3 hours vs 6 is pretty tolerable if you’re more comfortable for the 6 hours. SFO to Shanghai in 7 hours vs 14 would be a lot more compelling but Concorde could not do transpacific range.

I actually prefer a 10+ hrs business class flight over a 6-7 hrs flight. At least you can get a full night of sleep

Depends on the time zone change. From Europe to with Africa sure a 12 hour figggt is great. If I travel business London to singapore i get far worse jet lag than if I fly via the Middle East and break my journey for a few hours.

Past like hour 12 it becomes really draining. I used to fly JFK to HKG and that was an ordeal; I can’t imagine the newer super long haul like London to Perth.

That's the just flight time, but you've also got travel to/from the airport, parking, maybe shuttle bus/monorail, and checking/security/wait time at the airport as well.

So, add an hour for door-door travel to airport, and 2-hr before flight check-in, and now the comparison isn't 3 vs 6hr but 9 vs 12hr, which doesn't sound so worthwhile, although no doubt there are customers for it.

For longer flights it'd be much more attractive, but this is never going to be an affordable service for the masses.

A service where your limo drives out to the aircraft, with all searches and paperwork pre-done, would have about the same time gain as going Mach 1.7 vs. Mach 0.85.

And probably fewer regulatory hurdles (and I don't mean that because they wouldn't be considerable...)

Underrated observation. The low-hanging fruit is all in the office/home-to-takeoff and touchdown-to-office/home blocks on each end, not the time in the air. The commute, checkin, security, airport transit, boarding, and taxiing are the time-sinks worth optimizing.

private jets already solve these problems.

Which already is a bad signal for the article's argument. We already have a way to significantly reduce that travel time and it's a niche.

Could Boom Supersonic or whoever actually survive selling only to a hundred Taylor Swifts? How are they going to keep the lights on for the 30 years those jets fully saturate the market?

That's a real service. Some airports, including LAX and London Heathrow, allow a "tarmac transfer", where the limo goes directly to the plane. [1][2] Cost is $200 to $1000. That could save an hour or more at each end.

VIP Terminal Access: Skip the standard queues and enter exclusive VIP terminals where you’ll receive expedited passport control, security checks, and personalized services, all while enjoying luxury amenities. Avoid long security lines with expedited security processing, ensuring you spend minimal time in the airport.

[1] https://limossist.com/tarmac-transfers/

[2] https://airssist.com/airport-tarmac-transfer-service/

But for the private jet market, the reduction would be huge. They're already paying a premium to save time. The top end will pay an even larger premium to save even more time.

I agree with you that for commercial, anything other than super long haul (which is technically very hard), the time saving advantages are much less compelling.

Cutting 22 hours Sydney to London to 12 would make a big difference though.

There's no real way to make that much time on a plane bearable even if you had a lie flat bed: that's just a ton of time in the air.

Australian international travel would be the premier market if you wanted to travel supersonic (also our coastal cities mean most departures could accelerate immediately).

The irony is that supersonic jets don't have the range to realize the time savings over such long routes.

Having done Dallas<>Sydney a few times, going from 17 hours to ~8.5 hours would be huge.

Highly depends on the person. Over 6 feet tall with screws and rods holding my spine together, even a lie flat is not very comfortable, and not having to spend my first day or two at my destination decompressing before I actually enjoy the trip would be pretty valuable to me. The only way to achieve that is less travel time, but even so I'm not sure reducing the time in air would be enough when you add in travel to and from the airport, plus taxi time on the runway. It wouldn't be nothing, though, and I'd definitely pay for it if it made a difference.

Problem is broad market trends don't care about me personally. There have to be a lot of people like me with both sufficient injuries and sufficient money and there probably are not.

Some planes used to have lounges and bars and such.

Would maybe have helped? I know I'd pay more for that.

Some planes still do e.g. Emirates A380 has a bar, Qantas' has a lounge (though apparently it's not very good).

Is it actually not very good, or did you read an online review by someone who got miffed for some petty reason so they're magnifying the tiniest things?

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